Two people die trying to cross ship channel

PORT ISABEL — Five people believed to be undocumented immigrants attempted to swim the Brownsville Ship Channel in frigid weather, and two of them drowned early Tuesday.

Two others still are missing, local officials said. A fifth man was rescued and treated for hypothermia.

Macario Parra, 36, and four others tried swimming across the ship channel to Port Isabel around 1 a.m., but were forced back due to the cold and a strong current. The temperature was in the 40s that night.

Parra awoke several hours later on the sandy banks of the ship channel where he discovered two of his companions — one a teenager, the other a smuggler — floating in shallow water.

About 9 a.m. Port Isabel Police received a call from a “hysterical” woman said that her relatives were stranded in the ship channel.